Whats with the power of FREE? (People are weird)

SVreX wrote: My wife just won a bet with me. It was time to retire my son's saggy, completely worn out twin mattress. Actually, it was at least 10 years past time to retire it. I said I would haul it to the dump. She said she would put it at the curb and someone would want it. I said no way. NO FRICKIN WAY. She put a sign on it "Free". Gone in 30 minutes. I loose.

Replace "mattress" with "couch you sink into" and I had the exact same experience. Helped an old guy load it onto the roof of his very tired mid-90s GM product. I'm amazed at what people will take for free.

For Sale? Can't move it.

On the flip side of this, I had a foot locker full of old Harley parts. I mean stuff from the 30's to the 70's. If you had to go and actually buy them, hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. Maybe a thousand dollars worth. Some new, most used and useable. I knew that if I said "free" that someone with little interest would take it just because it was free. So I put it on the local radio station's "Dial a Trade" for $20. This poor couple came over and picked it up for the sawbuck. They had an iron head sportster (see "poor".) They could even immediately use the complete ignition system (points, advance weights, etc.) that was brand new in the package and worth some multiples of the $20 by itself, which was keeping his bike off the road.

SVreX wrote: It was time to retire my son's sOggy</, completely worn out twin mattress.

Well, that could have gotten akward with a freudian slip of a vowel...

Didn't Cabela's start with a "free ad"?

I think the story goes: Mr. Cabela was selling something like 5 hand tied flies for $.25. He ran an ad in the paper and made one sale...

Next week he ran an ad that said "5-free hand tied flies, send $.25 for shipping"

And now we have Cabela's